Dr. P.K. Michael Tharakan, Centre for Development Studies Trivandrum, Kerala, India, is among the foremost scholars of both the roots and the problems and challenges of the “Kerala Model” of human development.
His works include the Ph.D thesis on Kerala’s social and economic history, studies of agro-entrepreneurs, a seminal investigation (with Prof. K.N.Raj) of the land reform, a path-breaking enquiry into the socio-religious reform movements and the process of democratisation in Kerala, an analysis (with Olle Törnquist) on the attempts to renew Kerala’s radical political development project, and several critical studies and evaluations related to literacy, education, and democratic decentralisation for sustainable development.
